UNR hosts sexual assault seminar

The Clery Center for Security on Campus, a national, non-profit campus safety advocacy organization, began a training seminar Monday at the University of Nevada, Reno for college and university officials on how to respond to reports of sexual assaults.

In addition to UNR, other Nevada institutions participating in the seminar that ends today are Western Nevada College and the College of Southern Nevada.

"A large part of what we do is work with institutions to provide training and educate them in the number of different technical elements of the law, but also on how to embrace the spirit of the Cleary Act," said Abigail Boyer, the Clery Center's assistant executive director of programs, outreach and communications.

The Clery Act is a federal law that requires colleges and universities across the U.S. to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses and about their security policies and procedures.

"It's also about having specific policies and procedures in place related to campus safety and security," Boyer said.

UNR reported only one sexual assault in 2013 and none in the two years before that.

Boyer declined to say whether there is under-reporting of sexual assaults on college and university campuses.

"There has been a lot of focus on reporting right now within the media and beyond, and one of the things that has come out of the McCaskill Report and the White House Task Force Report, has been the focus on how important training is because we know, particularly when it comes to sexual violence, it is one of the most under-reported crimes," Boyer said.

"What we've seen as an organization is that when an institution has the type of training and when it has the policies and procedures in place not only to prevent these types of crimes from occurring, but by providing education before they occur, and if there also is coordination and collaboration on the campus, that is what results in the most accurate statistics," she said.